I whakaputahia tēnei atikara e RNZ.
Every weeknight in Tāmaki Makaurau, a rōpū from different backgrounds come together to learn te reo Māori through waiata.
Most are Pākehā, tauiwi, or Māori reconnecting with their whakapapa, all learning the language and culture of the country they call home.
For Pākehā ākonga Cameron Grant, the weekly class has become a place of connection.
“For a long time I’ve just always felt very fortunate to live where I live. I love our indigenous culture. There’s so many parts of it that I think are really, really beautiful.
“And I really want other people to see how beautiful they are.
“Coming to this class gives me the confidence to try and help others to see that beauty.”
Grant told RNZ learning waiata Māori had also become a source of strengthening his hauora.
“I just love how good the waiata makes us all feel. I love how we just become this group together.
“And I leave this class on a Wednesday night just feeling so, so at peace. The aroha in this room is just so amazing. It’s lovely.”
The akomanga is taught by New Zealand-born Chinese Eda Tang, who learnt te reo Māori through Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.
She told RNZ learning te reo Māori has always been about connecting to the place she grew up in.
“The everlasting reason has been to connect to the place where I’ve grown up and lived and breathed.
“That is the purpose that keeps me going.”
Learning te reo has also given her a deeper understanding of her own place in Aotearoa.
“My Chinese ancestors came here with English language laws that were designed to prohibit their entry to Aotearoa. And so this... learning te reo Māori is an honouring of the people who, after the signing of Te Tiriti, had their mana over immigration laws in this country undermined.”
Tang is passionate about language revitalisation, having also experienced the loss of her own ancestral language.
She said that had given her a particular connection to the revitalisation of te reo Māori.
“I grew up with Cantonese as my first language, but it is a language that is slowly becoming less and less spoken as language laws have changed in China.
“So it’s really been up to diaspora to keep the language alive.
“And living here in Aotearoa, I think we are very well placed to be part of the revitalisation kaupapa. So why not?”
Tang spends majority of her time as a writer, but teaches this class at Selwyn Community Education, for what she calls her “mahi aroha”. She started the waiata class while also teaching te reo Māori and ukulele at the kura.
“It’s never been about teaching people to sing. It’s been about people connecting with te reo, learning a little bit more about te ao Māori.”
Tang deliberately chose waiata that introduced students to different Māori histories and local stories.
“I always ensure that the selection of songs includes a range of different styles to talk about. Types of waiata, but also local histories that people may not have had the chance to learn about. And I’ve been lucky enough to be taught by the people who own those histories,” she said.
“The biggest mihi to your teachers is to koha back to your community. So that’s the goal of this.”
“And I’m just thankful that I have the support and the opportunity to do so. Because it could have just been something that I kept to myself and felt too whakamā to share. But I think it’s more important to let te reo and te ao Māori live than to be worried about making mistakes.”
For Italian husband and wife Cecilia Carcano and Corrado Corda, learning waiata has become a way of understanding the country they have called home for 15 years.
Carcano said their own Indigenous heritage drew them towards learning about the Māori culture.
“We are indigenous in our land [Northern Italy], and the connection with the indigenous people was like a call for me.”
Corda said language is an important way into understanding a culture.
“Learning the language is the heart of a culture. It’s a key, I guess, to get into the culture.”
Carcano said waiata provides a joyful way to learn both the language and the histories carried within it.
“It’s a joyful way of learning a little bit of te reo, and it’s not just reo, it’s about the culture again.”
“Through waiata you learn the history of New Zealand. You learn the iwi history. You learn about Tāmaki Makaurau.”
Many of the waiata the class learns come from mana whenua Ngāti Whātua.
“So it’s an understanding of their history narrated by them, so it’s a beautiful way of learning.”
And the sense of togetherness or kotahitanga was part of what they loved about te ao Māori.
“The sense of community. They get together, they’re welcoming, the whanaungatanga,” she said.
“That’s a beautiful concept that we kind of lost in Italy.”
Reconnecting with whakapapa
For Māori student Gina, learning te reo Māori is a journey back towards something she did not grow up with.
Now in her 70s, Gina said her Ngāti Porou whakapapa was not spoken about by her parents, so now she is trying to reconnect with that part of herself.
“I’m back here to get grounded and get on with it, basically. And I’m enjoying it.”
Gina had been “pleasantly surprised” by the mixture of people in the room and that in itself gave her a different perspective on the future of te reo.
“It’s wonderful. And it just lets me feel confident about the future of Māori. Because, you know, politically of late, it’s pretty decimating.”
But she said the connections being made at a community level gave her reason to be hopeful.
“These community connections at this community level are showing me something else. That’s a gap from what’s happening politically at the top. And I’m really hopeful.”
Te Wiki o te Reo Māori - Māori language week - is underway in Aotearoa with this year’s kaupapa being Ake Ake Ake - A Forever Language.
Nā Layla Bailey-McDowell nō RNZ.
